Brazil-Sweden cooperation creates radar technology for dense forests

The CISB brokered another important project in the aerospace sector, joining the Aeronautical Technological Institute (ITA) in partnership with the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), the Institute of Advanced Studies (IEAv) and the Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH - Blekinge Tekniska Högskola). This union was created by the research grants funded by CNPq, CISB and Saab, which aims to attract Brazilian talent to work on research projects considered strategic for the aerospace sector.

The Brazilian ITA researcher and one of the members of the research group, Renato Machado, explains that the project focuses on the remote sensing area and considers images synthesized by an airborne system developed by Saab. This system, known as Carabas, consists of a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) developed for use in fighter aircrafts, search and rescue aircrafts, small aircrafts and unmanned aerial vehicles. The technology is known as Fopen (Foliage Penetration), due to the high penetration capacity of the radio signal in these frequency bands. The processing of the captured images is synthesized with the Swedish system and aims to detect hidden targets in forests.

The result of more than six years of research, according to Machado, was the creation of a radar system to detect human activities within dense forests. The work is an important ally of the Armed Forces and the Government of Brazil, but civilian application is also a possibility. The system developed assists in the monitoring and identification of illegal activities in the Amazon, such as deforestation, drug trafficking activities, land border smuggling, among others.

In civilian application, it can be used as a rescue tool, for example, locating an aircraft that fell in a dense forest area or in locating people lost in an area of difficult access.

Machado commends the success of the project and thanks CISB for its participation, which was and continues to be an important element in the process of establishing and maintaining partnerships. Be it in the promotion of events or offering scholarships for short and long term study missions that assist in the processes of training and high level qualification of human resources. "The CISB has certainly contributed to bringing academia, industry and government closer together in strategic areas of the aerospace sector involving Brazil and Sweden," says the researcher.